Twisted electron collisions enhance the production of circular Rydberg states

Abstract Circular Rydberg states offer advantages for quantum information and quantum simulation platforms due to their long lifetimes and strong dipole–dipole interactions. Unfortunately, current techniques for the production of these states remain technically challenging. Here we investigate the ability of twisted electron collisions to produce circular Rydberg states. Twisted electrons carry quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM) that can be transferred to the electronic state of the atom, potentially providing an efficient means to generate circular Rydberg states. Using a fully quantum mechanical framework, we compute total excitation cross sections for circular Rydberg states of hydrogen, lithium, rubidium, and cesium targets using Bessel electron beams. Our models account for the full Bessel-beam structure of the incident electron and incorporate macroscopic target effects to model experimentally-relevant conditions. Our results show that twisted electrons with large opening angles produce significant enhancements in the excitation probability relative to plane-wave electrons, particularly for large opening angles and low energies. We trace this enhancement to contributions from projectiles with large values of OAM. These findings demonstrate that twisted-electron excitation may provide a feasible and potentially advantageous pathway for generating circular Rydberg states.